


From the Ashes Grow

by RoeLynn



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Biology, Alternate Universe, Fluff, Gen, Quintessons (Transformers) - Freeform, Transformer Sparklings, Unethical Experimentation, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25171840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoeLynn/pseuds/RoeLynn
Summary: Jazz is one of the first mechs on the scene of the destruction of Praxus to perform search and rescue operations. He finds a survivor.
Comments: 94
Kudos: 123





	1. Two's Company

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the first fanfic I have ever dared post on AO3! I can't guarantee this will get any more chapters, but I have enough in the works for perhaps one or two more if I can convince myself to piece it together. I have read honestly so many other people's works that it felt like time to contribute a little, although honestly, this one feels a little out there for a first fic TBH.  
> Feel free to correct me if I did any tags wrong, or if I need more, I'm honestly just trying to cover my bases lol. May become Jazz/Prowl if I get that far.
> 
> Oh, well. Enjoy my brain excretion :P

The first sign that something had gone wrong was the sudden death of communication. Praxus, as all cities, was a hive of activity. A wealthy neutral city, it was the center of an almost constant flow of trade and shanix in and out of its borders. That cutting off by itself raised alarms, but by the time anyone got even close to noticing, it was too late. The Quintessons had wiped Praxus off of Cybertron, leaving only a ruin of dust and debris. 

Rescue operations began hand in hand with the first calls to arms. 

As a part of the relief effort, every available set of servos was immediately sent to the ruins regardless of station. Any free enforcer, emergency personnel, non-essential government employee- those hit ground directly after the military swept through. Sentinel Prime himself was knee-deep in the slag while his Lord Protector focused on the pushback efforts.

Jazz, a small-time special operations mech, was wading through a block of small businesses and residential buildings. He had found only greyed out pieces so far, which he refused to look at too closely. 

Not far from him his temporary partner, a convoy mech called Hitch, was digging into an apartment complex. They were spread so thin over the huge city that the only reason they had partners at all was for safety reasons. Even then, they only tried to stay as close as adjacent blocks in an effort to cover as much area as possible. It was day two and every second counted.

Jazz nearly called the mech when his pede busted through a previously stable-looking bit of semi-clear flooring when he didn’t expect it. His other pede fell through after the first, causing a hard swing he was barely able to grip a pipe to stay up through. He then scrambled up and out, venting hard while looking at the spectacular scuffs to his paint that he’d gotten. 

After recovering, he discovered it was actually a trapdoor with the latch busted. There he saw that there were the leftover rungs of a warped ladder to climb down. He couldn’t restrain his curiosity. Who knew, maybe there was someone still alive down there! ...unlikely.

It was significantly cooler down here, away from the blast-heated streets. To his sadness, he found the rooms were almost entirely collapsed in, outside of the small open room he’d descended into. There were only dead mechs down here. Climbing back up, he nearly missed it over the sounds of his own systems.

“Beep! Cheep, brrreep!” The sound was high pitched, frantic, and music to his audials after only the crackle and crunch of brittle metal under his pedes all cycle.

“Where are you? Keep making noise!” He encouraged, dropping back down in one smooth slide and rushing to the rubble he heard the sound from. ::I think I’ve got a live one!:: he commed Hitch as he ignored the mostly intact pede sticking out from under a beam right next to his dig spot.

::Coming.:: Hitch replied shortly.

::I’m in a basement of some sort. There is an open trapdoor, third building over.::

Jazz dropped the line then to focus his energy on digging, claws extended to aid his efforts. He found the source of the now quieter peeping only moments later. It was coming from inside a large, old fashioned safe, the kind that used to be used for physical cred chips before most of it was digitized. It took a long minute to yank it out from where it was wedged under a slab from the floors above. It was heavy, scraping through the rubble on the floor. Jazz marveled at how tough the old safe must be as he examined it.

The cheeping was louder and more desperate. Jazz was a little worried about how old the mech he was about to find would be. No grown mech could fit in this, not even a mini.

Numbers had been hastily scratched in the black paint of the safes finish. It only took a moment to unlock it. He took a deep vent to prepare himself, nearly clogging his vents with dust in the process, then swung it open.

Inside was what could only be considered a nest, built hastily from meshes and rags. A half-dozen dirty bitlets were curled up in it. They looked like they were less than a vorn old; all but one were grey. The living sparkling was huddled in the back corner, blinking up at the light dazedly with two sets of dim optics. He hastily scooped it out from its dead siblings, getting a confused sounding “brrrr?” from it. It was tiny, not much bigger than Jazz’s fists. Its biolights were as painfully dim as its optics. It was obviously just this side of starvation and Jazz’s spark froze. 

He could tell it was too small, too young to last much longer without a carrier and fuel. It was a miracle its tiny spark hadn’t guttered out from the lack of its creators to keep it steady. Gently he placed a single claw sideways over its belly, so as not to risk accidentally pricking. It was small enough that he could feel its spark pulse there - it was pulsing erratically and weakly, to match the exhaustion and pain it teaked of. 

He hesitated. It would take time for a transport to get there, to get back to camp, to find a mech willing to take it on before its spark snuffed… he made a decision.

With a grinding noise from the grit in his seams, he carefully parted his chest plates, just enough for the light of his spark to shine through onto the tiny bitling. A tendril crept through the tight crack he had made, a space just barely wide enough for it, and whispered around the sparklings helm. He shivered at the contact but held steady. The bitties optics had brightened and began an excited full-frame wiggle, opening its tiny plates as well to receive the tendril of energy, so important for its very survival, into itself. It buzzed loudly, scrabbling at his plating and trying to get closer. He winced when its tiny, sharp digits caught in his chest seam, keeping the urge to slam them shut at bay through the will of Primus. “Shhh, bitty, you’re alright. I’ll give you what you need, don’t you worry. Shhh, calm, Bit. Calm.” He shifted his servos to grip it more securely to stop the movement.

Finally, he managed to complete the connection to its orangish spark, irrevocably binding himself to the tiny bitling until its adult upgrades. He was responsible for it now. His gaze drifted up to the other sparkings in the nest as his plating sealed back up. They were all dead, from shock, starvation, or destabilizing he didn’t know. If only he had gotten here sooner, maybe… His inexperienced spark wouldn’t have been able to support that many bitlings at the same time. It was better this way. 

He shoved that thought aside in favor of cycling up systems he’d never had to before. He didn’t exactly carry around sparkling grade fuel in his subspace, after all.

The sparkling was staring up at his faceplates. He forced a smile for it. “Hey bitty, don’ you worry, I’ll get your little tank full in no time!” He reassured it with gentle nuzzling. It nuzzled back tiredly, continuously making tiny beeping noises. It rooted around with its servos and face after a moment, searching for the rest of what it needed. It made him chuckle. “Patience, little bit. You’ll get your fill.”

His filtering system was halfway through checks when Hitch finally found the trap door. Jazz met him at the bottom of the ladder. Hitch’s optics zeroed in on the bit.

“A sparkling? How’d it survive?” Hitch asked in bewilderment as Jazz motioned him out of the way so he could climb up. 

“Found ‘im in an ol’ fashioned safe with several others. He’s the last.” The last living.

“He’s so small… don’t they need constant feeding at that age? What about spark stability? We’ll need to get him back to camp immediately.”

“Yah, I'm a’ready working on solvin’ that problem.” He carefully climbed up and scooted out of the trapdoor to settle cross-legged on the dirty ground. Hitch made a startled noise as he detached and unspooled his never before used, pristine feed line from his chassis. It took a few moments to convince the sparkling to latch on, and when it did the immediate draw was ravenous. The bitlet made frantic sucking noises in its desperation. He shivered at the alien feeling of fuel being siphoned from his filter tank. The fuel line that the sparkling clutched slowly started to glow with his spark energy, his systems having recognized the bitlet as his own, and supplying all it needed in one go. The direct spark-to-spark touch was only necessary once to establish a bond.

“You-! You bonded to it?” Hitch crossed his arms, suddenly looming above him.

“Finders keepers! Ain’t he cute?” He rearranged the bitlet so it was cradled by the arm he fed it with, freeing his other servo. Gently, he rubbed the top of the infant's helm. The bitty started purring, gripping the flexible feeding line with surprisingly strong servos.

Hitch didn’t think he was cute. Hitch thought Jazz was crazy for claiming and bonding to a random Praxian sparkling. Hitch called for a transport.

Jazz rode back by himself. Hitch would be assigned a new partner shortly.

~~~

The itty bitty bitling was quietly gazing up at him, field teaking of utter adoration. Jazz was dazedly staring down at the bitty, field swamped with feelings of love/wonder/panic, though he made sure to keep the last one well away from the sparkling. They were curled up together on a tiny cot in a tiny tent he’d been given near the medical tents. For now, they were being kept there for the sake of observation, to make sure the bitty was alright after breaking its bond with its creator and suffering like that for the couple of days until he’d found it.

It was really only hitting him now what he’d done- he’d become a parent. This tiny being was utterly dependent on him and only him for its very survival. He’d only ever babysat his little siblings a few times; never when they were this small. They were not truly his either, though he’d loved them.

He didn’t regret his impulsive decision at all. This sparkling had needed him, there was no one else even close enough that was willing to do what needed done before it guttered an excruciating death from destabilization. Hitch certainly wouldn’t have even considered the notion. When confronted by an officer for his rash decision in the medical tent, he merely pointed out the fact that there would be one less Praxian survivor if he hadn’t. The mech huffed and puffed but eventually relented. There were precious few survivors, every single one counted.

So no, he did not regret adopting this sparkling in the most permanent way possible. What he did regret was not being prepared for it, and worse, his upcoming check-in with his superiors, when he would have to explain why he couldn’t be sent on any missions for a while. That was the reason for the panic, anyway. He was going to get majorly chewed out by someone whose opinion mattered more.

His comm pinged. It was Whiplash. With a cringe, he pinged back and was promptly sent a comm call request. He hadn’t even spoken to him yet, but that ping already felt disapproving. He took a moment to sit up and vent, then accepted the call. 

::Heya boss, what’s shakin’?:: He cheerfully greeted. Whiplash was quieter than the dead, and he found that he was already wilting. The sparkling “chhhhrp?” -ed up at him in question. Several helm pets reassured the tiny bitling. And himself. ::So, uh, I'm taking it you’ve heard the good news, right? I’m a parent! Got my very own bitty! Alrightsoifthat’severythingthengoodby-::

::Jazz.::

He felt like he’d been slapped, the tone was so sharp. ::Um-::

::What in Primus’s name possessed you to go and long-term compromise yourself at the beginning of a war?:: Jazz couldn’t answer, busily petting his sparklings helm and back strut, giving each nub that would one day be wings attention, into which the sparkling started purring and preening. The silence lasted another few seconds. ::I see. You weren’t. Get your aft to Iacon, you’ve got two days before your shuttle leaves. When you get here, you’ve got a lot of paperwork to do.:: The comm call cut short abruptly. 

It was official, Jazz was going to die of boredom, locked in headquarters with only paperwork and datapad shuffling to do for the next vorn. Peeping drew his attention back down, and he realized that he’d stopped rubbing the little sparks back strut. He immediately obliged it to continue. 

His bitty (his!) gave an extremely content purr, and he was so in love with this little spark that he was melting all over again. Doing paperwork until he died of boredom was suddenly irrelevant. His bitty was worth it. Then it sneezed, a full-body affair for one so tiny as it cleared its vents in one great spasm. It remained stock still for a moment after, surprise evident in its field and wide sets of optics. He couldn’t help but laugh and cuddle it closer. “Oh, hah, it’s alright, little bit! Yer ok, haha!” It beeped in excitement for the affection, seemingly forgetting all about the strange new thing it just experienced. 

Getting a shower in the hastily set up racks, which were just plastic curtains around a portable solvent tank and a flimsy shower head, was an adventure. The water wasn’t cold thankfully, but it wasn’t warm either, and his bitty complained by buzzing when it got on him. The buzzing turned into angry cheeping and copious wiggling when he turned his attention from his own plates to the bitty, who was really overdue for a scrubbing. 

The complaints didn’t stop until Jazz stepped out of the racks and started wiping then both off with a towel he’d had in his subspace. Mostly dry, he’d allowed the bitlet to crawl back under his plating, hanging on with the tiny mags it had in its servos and pedes. 

Now that it was clean, he could tell that his bitty was mostly black and grey, with red accents to complement its bright crimson optics and biolights. His bitlet was going to be a looker, he could tell.

Later that cycle when he’d laid down to recharge, his bitlet snuggled underneath his chest plates over his spark, he decided that he’d made the best decision of his life. No regrets over this little one, none at all.


	2. Three's a Crowd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz's expedition of baby acquisition is not over! Also, more characters :P

It was the day after he’d gained his new charge and he had obediently come into the medical tents for his bitlets morning checkup. He was plunked down into a chair of the ‘waiting room’ and told it’d be a while, then the medic moved on to more critical care patients. When he tried to get up to wander, a different medic passing through glared at him so hard he sat right back down without taking a step. He supposed he was Fine where he was. The sparkling, now snugly tucked under his armor where he’d flared it just enough to form a pocket perfectly sized for it, was definitely fine. It had conked out in its safe, warm place.

A joor later, there was a flurry of activity as a dirty mech fresh from the search was rushed inside. Bored out of his processing units since the sparkling started recharging, Jazz realized that the mech was carrying another sparkling, one not much bigger than the one he now had. They both were distressed. The mech was panicking and practically shoved the bitlet into a junior medics servos, then took off. The sparkling immediately started wailing, waking the bitty under his plating, who made a half aborted reciprocal keen before waking more, and decided to properly join the show as a crying participant. Hello everymech, a competition to see who can cry the loudest? A challenge his little mite has boldly accepted! Primus help him.

The startled junior medic stood frozen to the spot, holding the sparkling aloft with a face of absolute confusion and consternation. After a moment it became obvious there weren’t any ranking medics who knew what to do in the immediate vicinity. Well, he was already sitting there with one now keening sparkling, what harm could it do to take another?

...He needed to make better life decisions. Oh, well.

He waved his free arm to get the medic's attention, (the other was occupied trying to get his sparkling to quit wailing and latch onto a feed line instead) and gestured to himself. “Mech, yeh clueless. Let me take ‘em.” They hesitated, struggling to hold onto the violently squirming sparkling in his servos. "You gonna bring that bitty over here or what?” The medic, who Jazz could now teak was very young, nearly dropped it into Jazz’s lap. He quickly corrected the fall before it could happen, settling the sparkling in one palm while he retrieved another fuel line.

He figured that the problem was likely the obvious, and unceremoniously stuffed the feeding tube into the sparklings mouth. It worked like a charm once the fuel -which was not glowing bright with spark energy, since this wasn’t his sparkling- got flowing. “Aight, I’ll take ‘im for a bit ‘till he’s done fuelin’. The more the merrier, right? Anyway, you should go find out what’s become of his carrier- they definitely ain’t dead, with how steady this bit feels.” Indeed, besides stridently feeding almost angrily while clutching the line tightly in its servos and kicking its pedes, the little bit was obviously not suffering from a broken bond carrier like his bitty had. He could feel the pulse of its spark through its back where it lay on his sensitive servo, steady and strong. The young medic nodded with relief and walked out faster than a mech on fire. 

Now he was just left with two clingy sparklings, one which had his feeding tube in a death-grip (ouch) and the other literally magnetizing itself to his protoform as it fussed in its little pocket. That, and a waiting room of mildly injured mechs who had been watching the brief drama, who hastily turned their helms away when he glared at the room at large.

He vented a sigh and rearranged himself and the bitties more comfortably. A gentle servo petting his ‘bit finally settled it down into recharge again, but the temporary leach wouldn’t stop fussing even once its tank was full. He didn’t blame it, he was a stranger after all. Later on, after a medic had given both sparklings a full spark exam - and himself, to his consternation - he was free to go back to his tent. He learned that the sparkling he was now babysitting, a cantankerous thing that wiggled too much and fussed constantly, did indeed have a living parent. Its carrier was currently in surgery in order to save his life; he also knew that the mechs chances didn’t look good. He was being kept close by in the event the mech recovered enough to reunite the two or he perished, in which case the sparkling would need a close monitor until a volunteer could be found to bond with it. Jazz's circumstances hadn’t really changed otherwise and wouldn’t do so until tomorrow came or something else dramatic happened, so he settled down for another boring cycle in his tent, soothing two fussy sparklings his only entertainment.

He discovered, after much scrubbing, that this bitlet was more brightly colored with a blue chassis, white limbs, and red accents. His sky blue biolights matched his optics. In all, it was the polar opposite of Jazz's bitling, in aesthetic and temperament. It had enjoyed the solvent shower, the only time it was truly content in his presence so far, and hadn’t stopped buzzing angrily about leaving it since.

~~~

The peace only lasted until the Quintessons swooped in over their camp for round two late that evening. One moment he was trudging back from retrieving his allotted evening rations, an extra in his subspace to cover the drain of two sparklings feeding from his systems, the next a ground-shaking BOOM nearly knocked him off his pedes. Accompanied by wailing, he curled over where the bits were both tucked under his plates on his front and bolted away without direction. Other mechs scattered and ran everywhere, sirens wailing off the hook. It was all he could do to dodge them and the Quintessons, guarding such valuable cargo like he was.

**::Alert! Quintessons have breached the perimeter! All fighters to emergency positions! Support personal and survivors to immediately retreat to the armored shuttles! All searchers still on the field, hide until further notice! Repeat, all fighters to emergency positions-::**

The alert blared loud and clear on the number one priority channel, almost blinding Jazz. He dismissed it to get it out of his face, sprinting South to the makeshift airfield as quick as he could, dodging mechs and bombs alike. The bitties had gone quiet, frozen in fear likely, but halfway to his destination, a particularly large bomb knocked him off his pedes for real. Immediately his temporary bitlet screamed, a sound he’d never heard from a sparkling before. The bitlets field lashed at his with _pain/loss/terror_ , making his tank churn.

He climbed to his pedes and kept sprinting. He had to get to those shuttles!

A dead mech's arm landed directly in front of him, tripping him again. He staggered upright with his lower left pede joint smarting, ignoring the limp.

A servo caught his arm a moment later. He nearly tore himself away before he saw that it was a Praxian, dirty with white bleached optics that were staring down at the distended plates where the sparklings now keened, vocalizers spitting static every few seconds. For a second the world narrowed to that mech, his tortured, determined expression catching Jazz up, then he forced himself back forward and kept running, new mech in tow. 

He’d never been more glad to see a transport taking off without him because servos were reaching out of it towards him as it slowly gained air. The mech running with him caught him around the torso and heaved him up, Jazz’s whole frame cleared the edge with the strength of the toss, bowling a few mechs over to provide a convenient and bumpy cushion to land on.

Jazz managed to roll off them once the door closed, securing them inside the transport. An offered servo helped him to his pedes and he realized it was the same mech who’d grabbed his arm and chucked him like a sack of so many iron spuds into the transport. He must have jumped and been pulled in after. “Thanks for throwing me.” He rasped, vocalizer rough from the dust and soot that had blown through the air in the wake of the bombs. Then he turned to the other mechs who were still getting to their feet. “N’ thanks for being my landing pad, mechs!” He cheerfully offered his own servo to one of them, a few of their tense, despairing faces cracked into grins.

“Into a seat! This is going to be a bumpy ride!” The pilot shouted at them, and he dutifully allowed himself to be steered into one of them by the same Praxian again. He was securely strapped in before many found an empty spot or clear area to hang on to dear life. There were too many mecha crammed in here but there was nothing for it. The Praxian had grabbed hold of an overhead bar and braced his pedes in front of Jazz, offering him a good look at the strange mech who had now helped him several times.

The Praxian was tall, much taller than himself. He sported a set of large and wide doorwings which were currently set braced in an almost determined manner, though Jazz didn’t speak wing ‘cant so he wasn’t entirely certain. The mechs figure was strong, with broad shoulders to support those wings and a surprisingly trim waist. He could barely make out the mechs paint he was so dirty, but he could see bits of black and white where the color shone through. 

With a rumble the transport hit turbulence, and everyone went quiet until it smoothed out again. The whispers and lowly toned conversations then picked back up, almost at the same rate the transport gained altitude. His bitlet cheeped, quiet and uncertain, it’s tiny field reflecting its fear - his field had been held so tightly that he hadn’t felt it until he’d unconsciously relaxed it again. He extended it to get a better idea of the bitlets emotional states without yanking them out of their hiding places.

After a spark pulse, he realized he couldn’t feel the other bitlets field or mags. Alarmed, he pulled out first his bitlet, who squeaked as it’s magnets were forcibly disengaged, then twisted in the restraints to reach the other bitty, who was disturbingly limp as it was drawn out. Its optics were off and biolights dim. His cuss words were loud and colorful. “No, no, no, bitty, don’ do this to meh now!” Primus, how had he forgotten the mechlings scream? It had been so jarring at the time- but, well, bombs. 

He wouldn’t ever forgive himself if this bitty, this fussy little spark who’d been cantankerous from the moment he’d met it, guttered because of his sheer forgetfulness, bombs or not.

Thrusting his upset bitlet into the surprised servos of the femme next to him, he put his full attention on the dimming sparkling.

He held it up to his audial, turning up its receptivity to hear as well as he could. In a far corner of his processor, he noted that it was almost deathly silent besides the vents of the other mecha, his sparklings whines, and some sort of fuss and movement on the far side of the transport. The rest of his attention was on the tiny, weak pulse of this bitlets spark, uneven and getting worse - he could barely hear it.

He pulled the bitlet away from his head and feverishly rubbed its chest plates, trying to get the unresponsive bitlet to open them. He knew down to his spark that there was only one way to save it now. “Open, open! C’mon bitty, c’mon, don’ give up!” With a click it gave, baring the weak, fading light of its lilac spark. Without hesitation he hunched over it, his own chest plates opening as far as they had just over a cycle ago, and bonded with the bitlet.

It was over in less than a klik and he knew it had been successful, he’d felt it latch on, binding them - but he remained unmoved until almost suddenly -“ _zzzssshhhrr_ rrrrraaaaaAAAA **AAAAH!** ”- the bitlet began to wail. 

He vented a deep rattling sigh, relieved down to his spark, and started sitting up again, sparkling (his sparkling, now) clutched tightly to his chest plates. A loud cheer went through the transport at the sound, shocking him -he’d forgotten where he was in the panic, _everyone had watched him bond to his sparkling-_ but no, the Praxian mech was still there. Hunched over him, almost boxing him in, the mech had leaned over him and used those impressive wings of his to block everyone else’s sight. He was turning his head back around, and Jazz realized that he’d looked away too. He was deeply touched and extended his exhausted field with _gratitude._

It was met by a stone wall of flat _despair_ close to the mechs plating, making Jazz recoil in surprise but the mech carefully reached back, and Jazz realized that it was _hope_ , there, too. He thought he understood, fetching up the best grin he could for the mech, whose face plates softened a micron.

Then the Praxian was being shoved away by an irate medic that was very _determined_. Jazz wasn’t even sure where he’d come from. 

The next joor was spent suffering through an exam and the prodding of two crying sparklings. The femme seated next to him was all too happy to not hold his howling first spark and handed it over. The two only calmed down again when he tucked them together under his chest plates over his spark with a glowing fuel tube each. The medic sighed as they were settled, moving his attention to Jazz’s now stiff pede, the one he’d twisted when he tripped while escaping the bombs.

“Yer lucky, mech. Five kliks longer and that bitlet would have been too far gone for bonding to bring him back. The backlash of trying to bond with him then would have been terrible.” The medic glared up at him even as he was scanning the limb. Jazz suddenly realized that this was a medic he’d seen early in the cycle, the one who’d glared him down when he tried to wander. 

“I kinda jus’ reacted, couldn’t bear to see ‘im go that way if I could help it. It’s been a crazy couple a’ cycles.”

The medic snorted. “Believe me, I know. How’d you end up with these two little mechs anyway?”

Jazz shrugged. “Found the darker one on the search- was it really yestercycle? Primus, anyway- found him in one o’ those old fashioned safes, someone had put him and ‘is sibs in there and scratched the passcode on it. It saved ‘is life and he’s a strong spark, but he was close ta’ gutterin’ when I found ‘im. Bonded to ‘im right there. This lil’ bitty got found with his carrier, but the mech was wounded real bad. I was babysittin’ ‘til somethin’ changed. I think one o’ the bombs hit the med tents they were in while I was runnin’ to the transports.” 

The medics field was grim. He then said “hold still,” grabbed a firm hold on the outside of Jazz’s calf, the other on the inside of his lower joint and twisted. Jazz let out a startled yowl but something let out a _pop_ and suddenly his pede didn’t hurt anymore. One of the bitties hiccuped in surprise at Jazz’s surprise, though he didn’t see which in his distraction. 

“A lil’ more warnin’ would be nice next time.” He grumbled, turning his pede this way and that to test for any catches while the medic watched approvingly.

“Eh, needed your pede relaxed to do that. Any tension would have hurt more.” The medic shrugged and struggled to his pedes. The standing mechs near him helped him to get up. “I’m sure you’ve heard this already, but let those bits fuel as much as they want. They need it.” Jazz agreed dutifully with the all the medics instructions, and when the medic turned to lumber to an obviously injured mech on the other side of the transport he interjected.

“Hey, medic, what’s yer designation? I’m Jazz of Polyhex, by the way.” The medic paused and considered him over his pauldron.

“Ratchet of Iacon. Don’t hesitate to call for me if something happens to those sparklings, you here?” Jazz’s visor brightened.

“Of course! N’ don’t hesitate if there’s something you think I can help with. Thank you, medic Ratchet.” They nodded briefly at each other before the medic walked away, squeezing through the throng.

The interior of the transport was dim. It made the optics and biolights of the mechs around him seem unnaturally bright, though many had dimmed theirs. The praxian was still standing next to him like a gaurdsmech, posture stiff and wings spread. His still too-bright optics were staring off into the distance unseeingly. 

As he did before, he extended his thanks in his field to the mech. He was met by the same wall of _despair_ , but it seemed softer now, somehow. They said nothing to each other, but the praxian acknowledged him with a glance and a wing flick. 

With a sigh, Jazz leaned his helm against the wall. The transport rumbled underneath him, mechs whispered sedately around him, and he was exhausted. He shuttered his optics. It would be a long trip to Iacon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear he'll figure out names for these bitties at some point. He's just doing his best right now :P
> 
> Also, cybertronians carry their young around like kangaroos but can put that sparkling under any plate they'll fit. Chassis plates are typical. The little bits don't fall out because they have little low powered magnets in their servos and pedes - they are fairly weak and become useless once they're too big to be carried around. They will be gone by the time they reach adulthood, though there are exceptions.


	3. By Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little hairy when Quintesson's are around.

The transport was grounded only a joor out from Praxus. A large swarm of Quintessons had been spotted heading in their general direction and the threat of being shot out of the air was significant enough for the highest-ranking officer with their group to deem it safer for everyone to hide on the ground while their few guards distracted the quints and led them away. Luckily, the terrain they were flying over was hilly and a tiny gully between two cliffs was found to hide the transports in. It wasn’t perfect, but as long as no quints flew directly over them and scanned the ground they would remain undetected.

His transport settled down on the rocky ground with a horrible _**scraaaape-thump!**_ Jostling everyone uncomfortably. His little mechs let out miserable chirps that he soothed by briefly squeezing his armor plates tighter over them and pulsing his field gently.

Several mechs got off the transport the moment it landed and an effort was made to try to conceal them from above. Jazz and others who were unable to help were ushered out a breem after to wait under an overhang while they scooted the transports closer together. Almost everyone hunkered down together against the cold canyon wall, only their optics and biolights glinting in the dark.

Jazz paced the edge of the space they were allotted to keep them out of the way, staring at the back of the Praxian who’d helped him. He had seemed to become more alive with something pressing to do and had taken charge of the concealment efforts of two of the transports. Jazz still didn’t know his designation, but he supposed it didn’t matter. He likely would never see the mech again after they reached the safety of Iacon and the massive shields being erected over it. 

He was too anxious to force himself to look away.

“Are you alright?” A quiet voice asked him, a field brushing his tentatively. Jazz jumped, jolting his sparklings briefly. This time they barely stirred out of their exhausted recharge with a quiet _meep_ before falling back into it. 

He turned enough to be sideways with the mech so as not to fully expose his front. It was a Praxian mech that appeared to have been gray or silver to begin with, as the layer of grime they all sported concealed his plating completely. His blue optics were glowing dimly in exhaustion, holding himself around the middle tightly in a subtly defensive posture. 

“I’m fine. What is it?” The mechs plating rippled in apparent discomfort. 

“Uh. You looked really tense? You’re making some of the mecha nervous, um, with that expression and your pacing and, uh, staring Lieutenant Prowl down really intensely, and we um, thought maybe we should ask-what-was-wrong-so-maybe-you-would-calm-down-we-don’t-want-a-fight.”

It took nearly a full klik for Jazz to parse out everything the mech had just said, his sluggish systems slogging through the audio at slower and slower speeds in order to understand every word. When he finally understood it he glanced at the scattered mecha sitting and resting around him, noting their expressions and tense plating. 

With a deep vent, he forced himself to still, resettle his armor with a shake, then shuffled over to find a spot to plop down at the edge of the group. He couldn’t help but tap his pede once seated. His uneasiness felt like a tensile wire of energy was run through him that had to be expressed, rendering itself as jittery movement. 

It took him a few kliks before he noticed the migration. The praxian that had called him out ended up sitting right next to him, huddled as closely as he could without invading Jazz’s EM field. Wary of the proximity he became more aware of praxians repositioning themselves closer to his spot, some blatant and some not. His twitching stopped as he became hyper-aware of them all.

In under two breems every praxian in the vicinity had loosely gathered around in an oval shape along the canyon wall; he and what he recognized as other creators with their offspring near him were in the center. There were less than a hundred individual praxians that he could see amongst the sitting group, not counting the dozen or so sparklings, mechlings and younglings with them. Prowl was the only praxian helping the concealment effort and that was in a role of leadership, not physical effort. It was clear that no praxian was currently in shape to be hauling rocks around.

Having the perceived most vulnerable up against the canyon wall and surrounded by the less so wouldn’t actually protect anyone if the Quint’s caught wind of their group and bombed them. It was the thought that counted, he supposed. 

A long joor later all the transports were satisfactorily covered well enough to both obscure their shapes and hide everyone’s heat signatures. Everyone was redistributed into the transports to even them out, with the worst injured being loaded into the biggest medical transport under medic Ratchet’s stern supervision. 

Jazz once more was hustled personally by Prowl into a seat on a transport, the mech then marching back out. This one was close to the medical transport and was actually better concealed than it. He wondered at that but figured it out when those who sat by him were the same he’d been sitting with for the last two joor. This was the carrier transport.

Mildly uncomfortable as being considered such, even if it were now true and only implied, he looked down at his freshly woken and fussy bitlets as a distraction. As such he was startled when a mech touched his pauldron. It was the mech who’d asked him to sit down. 

“Uh, hi, um, do you mind if I sit by you?” 

Jazz did his best to summon a smile, glad for something better to hold his attention. “Yeah! That’s fine. Actually, I didn’t catch your name earlier. ‘M Jazz.”

The praxian’s doorwings perked up. “Oh, yeah! I’m Bluestreak. Nice to meet you, Jazz.”

Apparently being introduced was all that Bluestreak needed to get comfortable with him because he proceeded to chatter at high speeds about everything. Jazz learned quite a bit about Bluestreak’s circumstances and shared his own when he could get a word in. He didn’t really mind the babbling too much and listened attentively.

Eventually, their conversation was cut off when a general comm told everyone to be silent and still. The Quintessons were close, and no one wanted to inadvertently attract attention in any way. 

Of course, the bitlets could hardly be ordered to sit still and shut up like the rest of them, so Jazz did the next best thing and woke them to start a feed. If he was lucky they would go back to recharge immediately after and stay so for a while. Around him, the other carriers had the same idea and the cabin was soon filled only with their sated purrs. The sound was soothing and aided the little sparks to each drop off into recharge one by one until the transport was as quiet as the rest of the canyon.

Jazz got his blaster out and checked it thoroughly.

~~~

It didn’t work. 

Everyone had tensed when the loud hum of Quintesson ships became audible and horrified when it was clear that the squids were directly above them. The first bomb had everyone bracing themselves and some outright bolted. Their screams convinced the rest to stay put inside, where they had better cover. Jazz was inclined to run out himself, but that was so he could shoot them down. He compromised by sticking his helm out the door and shooting at anything that wasn't cybertronian. 

The squids only dropped a few bombs before coming down in person, which would have been a terrible idea - they were easy to pick off outside their ships - except that the squids had the advantage of sheer numbers and copious amounts of sharkticons at their sides that they were directing. So they were going down like so much dross but were swarming in quicker than the cybertronian’s blasters could shoot. 

Strangely enough, the second wave of squids that swooped down were less sharkticon’s and more actual squids armed with odd, bulky guns that Jazz wasn’t sure of the purpose for until he saw one fired close-by and his spark went cold. The squids were actively attempting to trap individual mecha in nets that sparked with energy. The femme he saw get caught screamed when it hit her, shorting out her vocalizer moments after and convulsing erratically on the ground. If he or the other carrier’s got hit with it could mean a sparkling’s death, even if the squids apparently meant to take them alive. 

He chewed his lip as he watched them drag her into the sky out of the edge of his field of vision, presumably to stow her away in the battlecruiser slowly descending on them with a hum that caused small rocks to dance against his pedes. Uncertain of what to do he kept shooting and did his best to protect the transport even as those fighting ahead of him were taken dead or alive. 

When he ran out of charge in his blaster he turned to the others who were all now huddled at the back of the transport, all their doorwings canted down in blatant fear. With dread he realized that as the most competent fighter among them, he had to make a decision; one that became clear when a soldier near them went down with a blat of static.

He triggered the door closed and locked it, then crossed the transport to whisper to the half-dozen other mecha. 

“Look, it’s- it’s not good out there. The squids are taking mecha ‘live in nets with some heavy voltage and by their pede’s if they're dead. Dunno why they want anymech, ‘n the reason’s prob’ly not good, but it might be our best chance to survive this.” The praxians stared at him with naked terror and fear in their optics, one had tears already streaming down their face. “So I propose we throw down our weapons ‘n surrender so hopefully they don’t net us with the electricity. I don’t want my bits to be fried.” Bluestreak, who practically clung to him the moment he got close, burst into tears, which then triggered a young mechling next to him to also keen. 

Everyone shushed them frantically, then put any weapons they had by the doorway. No one argued with him over the plan. Jazz contributed the bulk of the weapons pile, of course, having had several knives and a tiny pistol along with the blaster on him. He kept a few hidden under his plating though, just in case. 

At Jazz’s direction, they spread out into just family groups, kneeling and ready to duck their helms and cross their arms on the back of their necks with open palms facing upward, the classic cybertronian sign of surrender. A mechling had to be taught how. He didn’t want everyone huddled together where a Quint might think they were working together and attack. At least, he _hoped_ the Quint’s would take them peaceably and not net them anyway. 

The first bang on the door made them all jolt and cower, the keening of a small bitlet filling the air. He assumed it had been jolted awake by its carrier’s field. He himself had been keeping his EM field either contracted all the way into his protoform or carefully filtering what emotions reached his two bits. 

It took less than a klik for the door to be broken in by a burly sharkticon, and at that point, they had all practically flattened themselves to the floor. He could feel the heat he was radiating reflecting back off of the floor onto his chassis as a phantom warmth.

He had arranged them so that he was the closest to the door. “Don’t shoot! We surrender, just please don’t shoot!” He immediately begged, tilting his head enough to make sure he was clearly heard. The quintesson soldiers were pointing their laser rifles at them and a warning shot burnt the metal next to his helm. Everyone flinched and another bitlet started keening, adding to the din echoing in from outside. The Quint’s flooded in, pointing their guns and net launchers at their helms.

“Please, we won’t struggle! We surrender, we surrender!” A femme next to him pleaded, shaking so hard he could hear her plating rattling together. He could see the white-bleached optics of one of her sparklings, peeking out from her lap, clinging to her in terror.

The Quintessons were suddenly everywhere, tentacles grabbing them and hauling them up roughly to their feet and strange handcuffs being slapped onto them with their servos still over their helms. They were then briskly frisked and Jazz shuddered in horror at the feel of their tentacles sliding slimily over his protoform. Several sparklings started keening and then there was a horrifying moment when a bitlet was yanked with a pop of its mags out from under its creator's armor. It screeched its upset, tiny claws scratching at the offending tentacle until it was dropped from a height that made Jazz’s spark stop. It landed with a bounce, then scrambled back to its carrier to crawl under their shin armor. He hoped it was alright.

The frisking was finished with thankfully only brief gropes to his sparklets and then they were dragged outside to a shuttle and shoved into a corner where sharkticons loomed over them. They watched as several other thankfully living mecha were dragged in in nets and roughly piled on top of each other with no regard. Occasionally the nets discharged small zaps of lightning between them or to the occupants.

Then the shuttle took off in short order, and Jazz sincerely hoped that he had done the right thing as he gazed out the windows at the thousands of ships surrounding them, the battlecruiser looming closer as they rose towards it. There were things worse than their sparks being snuffed, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter stage right: Bluestreak!  
> Don't worry, he's not a crybaby, he's just traumatized and gestating, both of which can mess with anyone's emotional protocols under the best of circumstances, of which these are definitely not. He's not the only one crying either, just one of the first. Jazz is only aware of so much during the chaos after all.
> 
> Poor little bitties, all they really want is an uninterrupted nap.


	4. Quintesson Captives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The consequences of being captured by Quintessons becomes apparent.
> 
> Warning for this chapter: Quintesson brutality to their captives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for kudo's and commenting! Each one helps motivate me to write more. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

They were escorted out of the shuttle one by one into cages. They were definitely cages, Jazz thought. Each one had separate walls of bars and a few feet separating it from the ones next to it, and the welded-on metal flooring made it clear that it was all one piece that could be moved independently. It made for a strange-looking prison.  
There was some fuss when the sharkticons tried to separate a youngling from their creator, but a watching quintesson impatiently shoved them back together and into a cage. Otherwise, most mecha were behaving or otherwise unconscious.

Jazz found himself in one of the smaller cages with Bluestreak as his neighbor on one side, one of the other creators with a sparkling and two mechlings on the other, and a wall only as tall as his cage separating him from the row behind it. Across the aisle, several unconscious mecha were being roughly dragged in, sporting burns from the nets. The net had been removed, he could see, but not a single mecha looked like they were going to regain consciousness from its devastating effects anytime soon. 

Worse than all this though was the large doors leading to adjacent rooms that he could see held more cages, and more mecha whenever a Quintesson or one of the many patrolling sharkticons walked through. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands of cybertronians on the battlecruiser. It was loud enough in the room to be a hundred mecha; he had to turn his audials down. He couldn’t imagine how many more cages there were on other battlecruisers across the planet, and how many would be shot down by the prime’s army with the captives in them? It wasn’t a nice thought.

He glanced around at his cell and grimaced. There was nothing in the cage but himself and what he had on him, so he sat cross-legged on the ground and curled up around his bitlings the best he could without going into altmode. 

Bluestreak tapped on a bar a few breem later, once it had become obvious nothing was really happening and everyone was trying to recharge or otherwise occupy themselves. “Psst, Jazz!” He whispered. Jazz obligingly scooted over to him to hear him better and took in Bluestreak’s state. The mech looked exhausted, with somewhat still fresh tear tracks through the soot and dirt on his face.

“You okay?” He asked and Bluestreak waved him off. 

“Yes, I’m fine now that I’ve calmed down. Anyway, did you see how many other cages are in that other room? They are capturing a lot of mecha! I wonder what they even want from us. Planetary resources? Slaves? I bet we’re going to be slaves since they’re capturing us and that’s what they did last time they tried to invade Cybertron.”

Jazz nodded. “Seems likely. Dunno yet, though. They aren’t being real’ talkative.”

Bluestreak nodded, suddenly nervous. “Um, hey, this is a little awkward but, can I hold your servo? I know I said that I’m fine but I don’t do well alone and usually I can just go to my friends when I need them but I haven’t seen any of them. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that. I just don’t want to think about why none of them are around and hey, what’s going on over there?” 

Jazz slid his servo through the bars, which weren’t that terribly close together, and fortunately, the cages were close enough that they could hold servos without straining themselves. “What’s goin’ on where?” He searched in the direction pointed and witnessed a Quintesson visiting an occupied cage several cells down. Inside was a seeker who was very unhappy. The mech had pressed themselves to the back of the cage, hissing at the Quintesson dangerously. His claws were out and his wings were raised sharply.

The Quintesson did not seem very afraid of the threat display and motioned a waiting sharkticon over, making them open the cage and wrangle the seeker to the floor. Of course, the seeker did not go quietly. He shrieked expletives loudly and colorfully in several languages and the ones that Jazz understood made him want to cover his bitlings audials. Bluestreak’s servo tightening on his made him glance over and consider prioritizing covering Blue’s instead. Bluestreak was flinching at the violence and watching in horror as the Quintesson finally approached the pinned seeker. 

The squid scanned the seeker several times, then pulled out a large metallic syringe that looked way too big for anything less than a shuttle. They flipped the seeker over so that they were lying on their wings, the sharkticon sitting on their legs and holding their arms down. The seeker devolved into frightened pleading at the sight of the thing. 

Without further ado the Quint stabbed the syringe down through the top of the seeker’s canopy, shattering it spectacularly and piercing through the underlying armor. The seeker wailed and seemed to convulse until his vocalizer shorted and his keening petered out into static. It looked like it might be deep enough to reach the poor seekers' very spark chamber. The Quintesson removed the syringe after compressing the plunger and left the cage, bringing up a holographic display that appeared to be attached to that cell and manipulating it. Jazz couldn’t read the garbled Quintesson language.

The sharkticon got up without issue from the seeker and staggered away, presumably to attend to the wounds the seeker left during the struggle. Anywhere the seeker had managed to strike looked like it had been shredded.

The seeker trembled on the floor and did not get up.

Horrified silence from all the surrounding cybertronians followed the scene. Some other mecha farther away got louder in agitation, knowing something bad happened but not what, since everyone who knew was too shocked to speak. Blue was practically crushing his servo.

“That… Primus.” Jazz finally said, finding himself lost for words. Bluestreak whimpered so Jazz tried to squeeze his servo back, but it was being held so tightly he wasn’t sure he succeeded to do more than flex it. 

The next joor Jazz had to spend by coaxing Bluestreak to sit down and then had him focus on a word game Jazz knew that they could play, keeping Blue’s attention on him and not the seeker, who he could see out of the corner of his vision, twitching on the floor. Blue was shaken enough without having to watch the mech foam curdled energon at the mouth. 

He also got to know the designations of most of the mechs around them; it seemed that everyone had become chatty in the wake of their shock. No one seemed to know the name of the seeker. Most of the mecha in the room were otherwise from the same transports he and Blue were on, and he could see all the creator mecha and their creations if he looked far enough down his row. 

He was telling the mecha across from him, a mech who had finally woken up from the shock nets, what happened when his bitties finally decided that they had recharged long enough.

With a stretch and spin up of tiny fans, his pale bitlet poked their head out from behind his armor plates, peering around blearily and cheeping. It drew both his and the mech's attention and Jazz gave the bitty a couple of gentle helm pets and back scritches when he pressed up into his servo. The bitlet’s doorwings wiggled cutely when Jazz found a particularly itchy spot and chirred.

“What’s his name?” The mech, who happened to be a seeker, asked. Jazz shrugged.

“Dunno, mech. I was jus’ supposed to sparkling-sit him for a day or two an’, well…” he trailed off meaningfully. The seeker nodded.

“Quints.”

“Yeah. He's mine now, so I suppose I need to come up with something to call him, I just don’t know what, yet. He’s got an attitude to him though.” The seeker gazed at them for a long time, an expression on his faceplates that seemed wistful. With a chirp, the seeker effortlessly got the bitty's attention. His wings then did several movements that the bitlet abruptly tried to copy, but didn’t really have the room for it and mostly just beat his wings against Jazz’s armor, paf paf paf paf! 

They both smiled and someone watching snorted. He was certain it was the big bruiser of a warframe a few cells down, whose cage was next to the downed seekers. Their antics continued for a bit, the seeker trying to get the sparkling to successfully imitate him, and the sparkling beating his doorwings like an ornithopter. It was even cuter when his darker, slightly smaller bitling was woken by the proceedings and enthusiastically joined in. 

The seeker then asked if that one had a designation either. 

“Nah, found him in Praxus a day before I spark-sat this one. Gotta come up with a des’ for him too.”

“Well, I’m sure good designations will shine through.”

Then the conversation ended, and Jazz curled partially into a ball around his now wiped out bitties, tired from exercising their wings. Only his servo still caught in Bluestreaks prevented him from totally shielding his bitlets from the world.

The lights shut off a joor later. Many mecha were settling back down at this point and it felt like a blessing, once the jarring change registered as not being another attack. Bluestreak had luckily already succumbed to his exhaustion and didn’t react other than a whirr when Jazz’s loose grip still holding his servo tightened suddenly in a flinch. 

The only light was from what seemed like dim purple emergency lights in random patterns across the floor outside their cages and the mecha’s own biolights and optics. There were no squids around now, only the sharkticons still patrolled the rows, though there were now fewer of them. It took a long time before he could keep his optics closed long enough to recharge.

~~~

A few days passed. The quintesson’s lights turned on and off on longer intervals, so at times it seemed dark during the day and light at night. His chronometer was fairly useless and many mecha found it unsettling or had difficulty recharging. Energon was delivered whenever the lights turned on.

Not much happened where Jazz could see, although occasionally a commotion elsewhere would jar everyone, and a strange game of telephone would commence until the whole room knew what happened. More mecha were getting stabbed in the spark with titan sized syringes. So far no frame type had been stabbed more than once, and Jazz was becoming increasingly afraid that he would be next because as far as he had been able to find out there were no other polyhexian’s in their room. Bluestreak was equally worried and only let go of him when a quintesson went by, unwilling to draw any attention to them. 

His only consolation was that the first seeker who had been stabbed lived, if barely. The mech had eventually dragged themself to a back corner of the cell, gripping the hand of the large warframe he had noticed earlier for comfort. From what he heard, some of the others who had been stabbed had not lived.

The bitlets were thankfully oblivious to all of this since they were too little for much higher processing anyway. Jazz would intermittently wash love in his field over them and keep his panic and fear away entirely so that they couldn’t feel him freaking out. Having sparklings that weren’t interested in exploring anything beyond his frame just yet also helped, since he didn’t have to worry about them squeezing out of the bars and wandering. They were easily small enough to get through.

He would have attempted escape if the few mecha who tried and successfully got out, weren’t caught nigh’ immediately and beaten horribly. They would be dragged back to their cages and left there without medical attention. It was too risky with his bitlings to think about. One mecha had made it out of the room without being caught, but that had been a cycle ago and no one was sure if he succeeded after he left the room or just got caught again, never to return. 

The urge to escape still gripped him and it was a to the Pit if he did, to the Pit if he didn’t, sort of situation.

The fourth light cycle his time ran out. A quintesson came floating down the aisle, a sharkticon at their back and made a bee-line for his cell. 

“Quick, Blue- hold my bitties for me, I don’t want them to get hurt.” His vocalizer then shorted with stress and he tried to reset it but the squid was getting closer. Quickly Jazz yanked the bitties out into the air and Bluestreak, bless him, understood and took them into his own servos without question. The transfer was completed just before they reached him and he backed away from Bluestreak, flattening himself to the back wall and hissed when the sharkticon entered.

He was pinned down soon enough - there was no space to maneuver or dodge - but with his claws, he was able to make the sharkticon pay for it dearly. It would be limping away from his cell.

Then he was flipped over, just like with the seeker, and the quintesson pulled out the scanner and Jazz waited, spark pounding, to see if something would disqualify him for the sick experiment they had been performing. The quintesson just hummed neutrally and the syringe from the Pit was brought out, gleaming in the overhead lights. Jazz couldn’t control how his armor clattered in fear. “No! No, I have sparklings!” He pleaded, but the squid positioned it over his spark, the tip lightly tapping his chest seam once before plunging in with brutal force.

The force of the puncture driving through his armor was intense and he found he couldn’t scream, his vocalizer clicking uselessly. He could feel the needle tear through lines and circuitry all the way to where it pierced his spark chamber. It burned like he was on fire and when the quintesson pressed down on the plunger it was like molten acid was pouring onto his very spark. He choked static, sputtered, and trembled, all awareness of his surroundings gone into a void that was all he could perceive outside of the pain. Energon welled up out of the hole when the thing was removed, conducting sparking energy to places it shouldn’t be, the needle itself hurting as much on the way out as on the way in as the Quintesson jarred his wounded spark carelessly. 

Errors and alerts filled his HUD. All he would remember later was sharp agony to his being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #thedramaticfaintingcliffhangeri'monlyallowedtodooncebeforeitgetsold:P


	5. Kindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In his darkest hour, another takes measure to make sure Jazz lives. He returns the favor.

When Jazz came too he was still in agony, except now the pain was like ice, sharp and freezing. His fans stuttered a few times, errors preventing them from properly spinning up. It took a long time and several tries before he was able to dismiss them, his optics finally online and the bars of the roof of his cage coming into focus. He didn’t try to move.

At least, he didn’t until his audials started filtering in actual sound and not a strange sort of almost-static overlaying everything that was more sensor ghost than anything. It only took him a klik before he recognized the sound of his bitlets chirping for his attention urgently. Something about them made his creator protocols roar to life.

With a groan and a tremendous act of will, he rolled onto his side, sudden wet warmth sliding over his plating startling him into focusing on his bumper where he saw strange fluids, not all of it energon, dripping out of the grisly puncture hole in his chassis. The plating around it was warped strangely where it dented in and then was partially yanked back out by the needle.

He had to look away before he purged.

Instead, he looked towards his bitlets. They were struggling wildly in Bluestreak’s servos, trying to wiggle hard enough that he would drop them, just as Blue desperately tried to hold on. It would have been comical if his coding wasn’t screaming at him to rescue his bitlets _now._

All he managed to do on his first try was spit static, which at least caused a mecha in his peripherals to look up. They said something he couldn’t make out but Bluestreak’s helm snapped up to meet his optics and his bigger bitty abruptly succeeded and fell to the floor. He felt alarmed but the sparkling shook it off and immediately scrambled through the bars and across the distance between the cages without hesitation. All the while he beeped plaintively in a way that tugged on Jazz’s already aching spark.

Jazz fixed his gaze on him until the bitling successfully made it to him, scrambling over his face and helm. First Bitling safely across he looked back to Bluestreak, willing him to let his other sparkling go too. His protocols, while having calmed down significantly by having one sparkling returned safely and finally recognizing that Bluestreak probably wasn’t a threat, were still insisting he keep them as close as possible in the hostile environment that had injured him so badly. 

His white bitlet crawled underneath his pauldron and began creeping down his backplates from one to the next, on his way to Jazz’s fuel lines, presumably. A processing thread noted that he probably wouldn’t have much to give, since it was leaking out of his chest plates.

Bluestreak looked conflicted. “Brrrrr,” Jazz managed, achingly reaching towards them with the arm not pinned underneath himself. That seemed to be convincing enough and Bluestreak finally complied. The sparkling seemed stunned upon being set down, freezing on the floor in fright until Jazz clicked to him, calling him over. When the bitty saw him again any hesitation flew out the window and he made a bee-line, four optics bright and wings flapping like he could take off to get to Jazz faster.

The bitling came in hot and collided with Jazz’s servo, latching on with his mags and claws to swiftly climb up his arm and over to his bumper. Jazz hissed in pain when the bitty set pede on his chest plates. With utter confidence only a young spark could have the darker bitling settled over the still oozing wound, covering it with his little body. The sideways pull of his weight hurt, but Jazz couldn’t exactly move him and so rolled onto his back again once he confirmed that the lighter colored one was safely ensconced underneath his bumper and not on his back somewhere still. 

The bitties weight pressing down instead of sideways was marginally better, in that fewer and different pain sensors were being set off, but it wasn’t great. It also wasn’t the worst pain he was currently feeling so he just dragged his servos up to cup the bitlings where they were and keep them still. From the pleased pulse of the lighters field and the draw from his auxiliary tank, he’d say that one was happy enough just fueling. 

His darker, slightly smaller first sparkling was chirring where he lay over Jazz’s spark, tone still plaintive and scared. Jazz wasn’t entirely certain how to reassure him when he was so exhausted and weak he couldn’t move, but ironically the very issue causing the problem solved it. With a click, the bitlet’s chest seam split apart, baring their strong orange spark, dimmed slightly with stress. Jazz’s spark reached back, a tendril floating up through the breach without his consent to lightly caress the bitlings. 

With it, he could feel the sparkling’s fear viscerally, a spark-breaking fear of being alone. He soothed it with his presence, bolstering his bitling even as his optics flickered from the strain. He allowed it for as long as he could, a few nanokliks, before summoning up the strength to manually move the bitty away, much to its protests, and eased their chest seam closed again. He then plopped them down onto his abdomen and let them sort out finding one of his fuel lines. 

His number one priority sorted out, his neck cabling relaxed and his helm thunked onto the cool metal flooring. He set his servo back down onto his bumper, covering the hole over his spark. With a sigh and a second draw from his auxiliary tank confirmed, along with an alert about said tank getting low, he went into recharge.

He next opened his optics to see a squid hovering over him, a scanner held aloft. His cables tightened and armor clamped down, engine revving hard. Jazz then tried to sit up in a knee-jerk reaction that was thwarted by the heavy clawed hand of a shark holding his shoulder down. The thing was sitting on his pedes, stretched over sideways to hold him down without getting in the way. The sharkticon was eye-balling where his bitties were hiding in his armor in a speculative way that made his claws unsheathe.

The scans were already over as the squid raised the scanner to one of its five faces, briefly squinting at it before turning away, floating out of the cage without comment. The sharkticon grunted and stood, beady eyes glittering at him in a predatory way before it lumbered out. The door was shut and locked.

Through this Jazz lay perfectly still, then shot shakily to his pedes and stumbled backward to the opposite wall of the cage when he heard the buzz of the lock successfully engaging. He watched the two hover and lumber away with wide optics, then sank slowly back to the floor as the temporary energy from his near-spark attack drained away like water in a sieve. His backplates scraping down the bars squealed. 

He stayed there sitting with his chassis leaning against the bars for a time, suffering through several heavy pulses of his spark that stung as it felt like it bucked off the shock of booting up with a squid in his face. His engine hiccupped as it slowed back down into an idle. 

When both finally eased away he checked his bitlings. They were wide awake, flattened as close to his protoform as they could physically manage, staring up at him with their bright little optics. He reigned in his EM field immediately, pulling it back from where it flung out in his alarm. Gently he pressed a sense of safety against the sparklings, apologizing and soothing them once more. He felt horrible that a Quintesson had gotten so close without him noticing at all, let alone a Sharkticon sitting on him! 

“Jazz? Jazz, can you hear me?”

Shakily he turned his helm, seeing Bluestreak pressed up against the bars of his cage, as close to Jazz as he could get. He didn’t trust his vocalizer so nodded.

He was a few feet from the corner of his cage, where he had sat before to hold Bluestreak’s servo. He found suddenly that he desperately wanted to, to feel that another mech was with him, but his struts felt as sturdy as a silicone mold and he didn’t think he could get that far without tipping over. 

“Oh, good, we’ve been trying to talk to you for a while but you were just shaking and not responding and I’m really glad you’re coherent now because I wanted to ask how your fuel levels are? You missed the last two fuel times ‘cause you were unconscious and they didn’t give you another one since you hadn’t drunk that one yet.”

Slowly he turned his helm to follow Bluestreak’s pointing servo and saw a ration where it was always pushed in through the small opening for it. It was across the cage and while he was very hungry, his tank’s meter showing in the red, the distance felt impossible right then.

“...Ok.” He willed the cube to magically hover over to him by thought alone. It didn’t work.

Bluestreak talked to him for the next six breem. He still hadn’t gotten up, and if anything was more exhausted than ever. He was fighting recharge when a flurry of hissing whispers from across the aisle managed to catch his attention by the sheer oddity. They sounded upset but not quick-the-squids-are-coming-shut-up upset. He managed to lift his helm and watched as the seeker across the way, who had entertained his bitlings with wing-cant, successfully hacked his cell door and slipped out silent and fast as oil. 

An escape attempt? Bold, but he couldn’t exactly judge. Except the seeker didn’t duck one way or the other and instead crossed the aisle in a couple of quick steps to Jazz’s cage. He witnessed with brow-ridges raised as the seeker unlocked his cage as well in short order, bent down to scoop up Jazz’s energon ration, then sidled up and sat next to him. 

“I’ll be fragged if I watch another mech starve with energon ten feet away if I can do something about it.” The seeker explained preemptively, then brought the energon to Jazz’s lips.

For a nanoklik he was offended. Who was this mech that he was trying to hand-feed him out of the blue like an invalid? His attempt to lift his servo, intending to push it away failed. After a moment’s struggle, he realized that he didn’t have the strength to lift a servo. He _was_ invalid, the knowledge causing him to begrudgingly opened his derma. An invalid that was going to gratefully drink the energon being carefully tipped into his intake.

It didn’t take long to drain the cube. Then the seeker went and got his still half-full cube and Jazz tried to resist drinking another mech's share, but it was so tempting and the bitlets were already making headway into draining him dry again. So he drank that one too and ignored the tears on his face. The seeker didn’t comment.

“Thanks, Skywarp.” Jazz’s voice was raspy and dry despite half-way through draining the second cube. He also hoped that he’d gotten the seeker’s name right, having only muzzily recalled it. Skywarp dipped his wings in a way Jazz was sure was wing-cant and smiled.

Once done the Skywarp helped Jazz lay down on his side, in the back corner where he could see everything but also reach through to hold hands with Bluestreak if he wanted. Then Skywarp strolled out of the cell, relocked it, and locked himself back into his own cell easy as you please. Not a single sharkticon noticed.

The mecha in the surrounding cells, who’d gone quiet when Skywarp left his cage started furiously whispering again. The seeker grinned like a loon.

Jazz felt exhausted again, despite fueling more than his share, and curled up to recharge again. A brief stroke of his EM field over his bitlets to reassure himself of their presence and moods (tired, fueling daze) and he was out like a light.

~~~

Three of the Quintessons light/dark cycles had passed after the squid’s saw fit to inject that foul liquid into his being. Skywarp had snuck into his cell twice more to help him before the Quints came for him, too. Tension swiftly rose when it became obvious that the experiment was now a free-for-all. Any security brought by the idea that someone else of your frame type had already gotten injected went out the window. Escape attempts skyrocketed, and they were all consistent failures. Even the flyers had no luck, as the only way in or out were the doors, where the sharks would then gather and watch the flying mech go in circles until fuel deprivation or frustration grounded them again. The Sharkticons were starting to take preventative actions; many mecha ended up beaten or savaged when caught. Those mecha’s survival rate was lower than those living through being injected.

He had managed to stand and slowly shuffle when the ration was delivered that light cycle. He drained it the moment he reached it, then glanced over at Skywarp. It was hard to tell if the mech was lucid or not, everyone injected twitches for about two days after. Any mecha who made it to the two light cycle mark lived. He wanted to help guarantee the seeker’s survival, as the seeker had helped him. Right now was the best time to do it. After energon delivery, when a drone with a hover-cart manually slotted a cube into each cage and removed the empty one, there was a two-breem period where no sharkticon came near this row of cages. He’d be fine if he was quick.

So during a lull between patrolling sharks Jazz went to the door of his cage, hacked it (no wonder so many got out of their cages; the lock was pitifully easy), and shuffled over to Skywarp’s to repeat the process. He got in quickly and scooped up the seeker’s ration before easing himself down into a kneeling position next to him. 

“Hey, Skywarp, you with me?” With a gentle servo, he lifted the seeker’s helm. Skywarp groaned, several chest plates and his leg juddering with a painful scraping sound. The seeker’s optics lit dimly. “I’ve got your cube here. You need to drink it. Do you think you can swallow?” 

Skywarp’s minimal EM field answered with a vague affirmative, so Jaz went ahead and coaxed a few drops past Skywarps lips. The seeker gradually managed larger sips but it still took a full breem to empty the cube. “Good job, Skywarp. That was all of it. Recharge now, I’ll make sure you get your next ration, ok?”

Skywarp’s lips turned up in a vague smile and his optics powered back down, going limp. Jazz eased the mech’s helm back down and practically flew back into his cage. He didn’t have the confidence to swagger as Skywarp had when doing this. 

“That was brave,” Bluestreak whispered to him, once Jazz had slumped onto the floor and preemptively held his servo out between the bars. He grunted in response, too tired to muster up the will to speak properly. Bluestreak's warmer servo slid easily into his. “But, don’t do that again. A sharkticon walked by right when your door shut! You could have been caught. We can get someone else to do it.” Bluestreak’s tone was pleading and Jazz’s optics wandered over the mechs currently in his field of view. Who else? He just shook his helm and powered down any unnecessary systems. He didn’t have the energy to contemplate it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bleh, I'm ignoring my homework to post this. Aesthetics is going to murder me. On another note, I designed my own icon! I discovered MS Paint again and stayed up until 2 AM on accident because I was having so much fun with it, lol


	6. Crash and Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not quite the rescue he wanted, but Jazz will take it.

His bitlets were becoming restless, uncomfortable, and generally hungry. His frame was burning his ration quickly, leaving the sparklings with less and his overall discomfort bled over to them through his field, of which he was having a difficult time controlling the last cycle. A recipe for fussiness and tantrums that nothing he could currently do would soothe. 

Jazz empathized with them, dealing with an added heaping of general pain and worrisome overheating himself. Sometimes his struts would ache, other times his wiring, engine, processor, circuitry, or all at once. The bright heat of busy nanites had settled in small specific patches of protoform just above his hip-struts. He had no idea what they were doing and feared what it meant. Those spots hurt the worst at all times besides the spark pain, which thankfully was slowly easing with time. 

Skywarp at least had done better the last two cycles and Jazz no longer had to assist him by making sure he fueled. Unfortunately, Bluestreak had become an injection victim last light cycle. He had twitched more than Jazz remembered the seekers doing during the dark cycle and he was worried that the young mech wouldn’t survive it. Several other mecha in their row hadn’t. 

Joors passed. He watched four more mecha be stabbed that light cycle. Two were on the far end of his row, past Bluestreak. The other two were the mechlings in the cage next to him. The whole family had to be pinned down by individual sharks, even the third tier sparkling who shrieked horribly when yanked out of his carrier's servos. 

The squid had initially only scanned one mechling, stared at the screen for a long klik before floating out of the cage. Jazz would have thought that the squid didn’t like the results and was going to leave them alone, except the sharks didn’t let the family up. Instead, they stayed, pinning the whimpering and wailing mechlings until the Quintesson had returned with two others. They then scanned both mechlings, consulted each other in a language that didn’t even sound like Quintesson, then pulled out syringes and stabbed both mechlings at the same time.

The screams from their vocalizers were shrill and somehow harmonic, crescendoing into ranges high enough to nearly deafen Jazz. Their carrier had dragged them into a corner once the sharks and squids invading the cell left. Laid down side by side, the mech was trying to pet and soothe them while also dealing with his sparkling, who hadn’t stopped keening on and off since it happened. 

So with all that had happened, he thought that he could be forgiven for having his still-ringing audials receptivity turned down and not noticing the lack of the shark patrol during their usual laps up and down the aisles. 

It became obvious, however, when the impact of some sort of artillery hitting the ship made everything vibrate. Immediately every mech capable of it stood, clutching bars or their chest plates. Jazz understood that as he was doing the same, the vibration through his spark had made a sharp fissure of pain go skittering through his systems. 

Luckily his spark seemed to settle itself, the next blast merely jarring his chest plates, though that itself hurt. His bitlets started cheeping in alarm, having been woken out of recharge. The mechlings cried. 

Each presumably successful hit to the Quintesson cruiser shook them harder than the last. 

Emergency alarms blared to life, the lights switching to dark purple emergency lighting that plunged them into near-darkness. The ship now shook constantly, punctuated with harder shakes accompanied by the blasts of weaponry.

Bluestreak woke up suddenly, sitting up quickly in alarm, then made a pained whimper. “S-slag.” Jazz sympathized, having experienced the pain of jolting upright so soon after being injected himself not that long ago. 

A particularly loud rumble turned suddenly into a roar unmuffled by walls that deafened Jazz once again. Then his fuel tank abruptly flipped as the ship tilted and started dropping. Mecha screamed in fear, and it dawned on him that his fear had been realized, the Prime’s army had shot them out of the sky with everyone still aboard. He clung to the bars and wedged himself into a corner, curling up into a protective huddle and hoping that would be enough to keep from bouncing around his cage on impact like a rubber ball. 

There was a loud crash and bellow down the aisle. A quick look revealed it to be the hulking warframe, Megatron. He stumbled across the open floor to the cell next to Jazz, where the creator with their twin mechlings and sparkling were. Megatron easily battered the door open and hustled over to them, then picked up each mechling and cradled their weeping frames in his arms. Their creator and sibling were then boxed into a corner by his frame, great big servos curling around the bars to anchor them all immobile in a corner.

Inspired, Jazz hacked his lock and hurried into Bluestreak’s cage, using the bars as servo-holds to keep from skidding in another direction as the floor see-sawed underneath him. What on Primus was going on out there? The cruiser was bucking wilder than a feral zap-horse.

When he got through the door he immediately had to rescue Bluestreak, who had been sliding around and being bashed into the bars, too weak to grip the bars himself. Streaks of paint now smeared the floor.  
Jazz managed to hack the lock and swing in on time to grab the mech's pede as he went sliding past, then used the next tilt to aid him in dragging Blue into a corner, his strength boosted by emergency protocols. With a heave of his now flagging strength, he pulled Bluestreak into his lap, a pede on either side of his chassis and Blue’s bumper slotted over his own. His bitties were safely between their abdomens. Bluestreak’s bumper limited his field of vision like this, and the position was a little intimate, but that wasn’t a big concern of his right then. 

Reaching around Bluestreak’s waist and under his doors, he grabbed the bars and quickly shoved his pedes through as well, hooking any joints he could around them. 

He felt bad for the praxian’s door-wings, which were squashed at an awkward angle and looked messed up from the skidding. With a groan, Bluestreak loosely hugged Jazz’s neck. His EM field was a mess of pain. 

The Quintessons evidently lost the battle to keep the ship in the air, as the pace of their dropping picked up speed and Jazz had to hold on hard to keep them from lifting off of the floor. Bluestreak wretched and something warm and hot slid down his back plating.

He’d barely registered the sensation when the ship hit the ground, Bluestreak felt like he was a thousand tons of weight from the g-forces and Jazz’s grip on the bars slipped. His helm slammed into the floor with a crack, knocking him out cold.

~~~

Waking up was a nightmare just as bad as when he’d had a Quintesson floating over his helm. Smoke filled the air, clogging vents with impunity. One of the first alerts he registered was that of overheating. All he could see upon onlining his optics was darkness and sparking wires that glinted in spiraling fractals over the plexiglass of his shattered visor. A beam of dim light washed over him and then away. 

His audials onlined but the sound he was receiving was strange and distorted. It sounded like some sort of sirens at first but a nanoklik later his frazzled processor identified is as his bitlets keening.

Jazz tried to sit up, grinding his dentae together when it failed and tugged on his crushed left side. A fresh, louder burst of screaming was all he got for his efforts. Instead, he relaxed, trying to figure out what was crushing him and his bitlets. Only one servo responded when he tried to lift it, and all he could feel was what felt like the cold plating of a dead mech above him. Horror filled him as he tried to reach out with his EM field. Errors came back.

The crunching of footsteps on debris came from the same direction as the beam of light, which was now brighter. He couldn’t keep in the agonized cry when whatever was on top of him moved. A moment later it was lifted up and away. When it was high enough he was able to see that it was Bluestreak, leaking and mangled with dim spark-light peeking through the grisly hole in his chassis. That was all that assured Jazz that the mech still lived.

A klik later Megatron materialized above him, reaching down to carefully pick him up. Jazz turned his vocalizer off and immediately was rewarded for his forethought. Being shifted hurt like the pit and he had to turn his visor off as well to limit additional sensory information. The mech’s EM field was welcome, however, soothing both Jazz and his bitlets. 

He looked at his chronometer as a distraction while they were carried. It had been two joor since the crash.

A new EM field washed over him, one he didn’t immediately recognize though it was very familiar. He let his optics open to a tight squint, seeing Megatron’s dirty chest plates. He was being cradled in one of the mech’s arms like he had seen the war frame do with the mechlings. Bluestreak was being held in the mech's other arm, though more awkwardly positioned due to door wings, damage, and Blue’s larger frame size. 

Then red servos smeared with pink came into view and he realized the new EM field was a medic, and not just any medic, but Ratchet himself. His vents wheezed in joy and relief. A small bright light on Ratchet’s digit shined into his visor, forcing him to dim it with a wince.

“You online, kid? Spit static if you can hear me.” Jazz obliged, then tried to reach for his abdomen in a half thought out wish to check his now quietly cheeping bitties. “Hey! No moving. I’ll check your newlings first, just give me a minute. I’m stabilizing mecha as quickly as I can. Megatron, set them down gently on that bit of clean floor over there. I’ll work my way over to them. Then come help me roll this flyer over…”

Megatron did as he was told, apologizing when Jazz hissed, his crumpled side twisting a little when the mecha bent down to place Bluestreak on the floor. Then Jazz was put down with the better care of two servos before being left alone. Megatron was apparently acting as Ratchet’s nurse and gopher, and helping dig out survivors when Ratchet didn’t immediately need him. This Jazz gathered as he listened intently to their conversation and forced himself not to worry about the status of his bitlings. They were making noises and he could feel one squirming, so they were probably okay. His EM generators were sending him more errors when he tried to reach out to them. 

The room was busy with mecha coming and going, hauling wounded or coming to get treated themselves. Some bots were performing first aid, but there were noticeably few actual medics.

The muted patter of Blasters and the vvvvrrrrrraaashoooom of bigger cannons discharging was audible, echoing from somewhere outside through the hull of the ship.

Blaster fire echoing down a hall from close by was enough reason for him to try and turn his helm to look, seeing only darkness. Hopefully whatever Sharkticons and Quintessons that were still alive in the ship were being mopped up. 

Ratchet finally came to stand over him and spared no time, kneeling quickly and pulling Jazz’s dented and warped plating off their connectors and hinges. Some of it was numb and Jazz didn’t feel it, but others were otherwise fine and that hurt! He yelped and spat static before resetting his vocalizer in an attempt to speak. 

“YEE-ow, Ratchet! I can still feel all o’ that!”

Ratchet grunted and kept going. “Your plating is a mess, and your bitlet is underneath it. It had to come off anyway.” He punctuated his statement by tearing another plate off, a little bit more delicately. Jazz let his pinched expression speak for him.

One of his bitlets was freed in short order; Jazz barely saw him before Ratchet whisked them away. They were handed off to another medic while Ratchet came back and dug out the other one. Jazz tried to watch the other medic examining the darkly colored bitlet but his cracked visor was making it difficult to see anything. “Is he ok?” 

“He looked okay. Had a few dents that I saw. Flatline will find any injuries. Ah, here we go.” The bigger of the two was lifted with a squeal. His right arm and servo were crushed and dented, a slow drip of energon sliding off of it. Jazz couldn’t contain the low, wounded-sounding keen that came from his vocalizer at the sight of it. 

Ratchet tutted, turning the bitlet this way and that, cradling him carefully as he used his in-built scanners to examine him. The bitty whined, punctuated with blurbs of upset sparkling chatter. With a sigh Ratchet swiftly sealed off the leak with glue, then immobilized the arm with an adhesive patch. “I can’t fix that here. It will have to wait until we get him to a proper med-bay. He’ll be fine for now. Flatline!” Ratchet turned to the other medic, who was waiting nearby with the darker sparkling. “Come use that adaptor of yours to turn this one’s pain-receptors down.”

A careful exchange of bitlings was done, then Ratchet pulled out a rag and wiped the plating over the puncture wound on Jazz’s bumper with one servo. Then another sticky patch was used to seal the hole. “There. That’ll keep more dirt from getting in. Here.” The smaller sparkling was then set down on his chest plating. There was a scramble of little claws before his magnets kicked back in, and the sparkling climbed right over the patch and flattened himself down, a little wall between Jazz’s vulnerable spark and the world.

Jazz couldn’t help but feel better at not being so exposed anymore.

Then the paler bitlet was set down on Jazz’s chest plates too. The little one started cheeping loudly once he felt the proximity to Jazz’s spark. Calling for him, and without the use of his arms or field Jazz did his best to answer.

“Shh, I’m here! I’ve not gone anywhere, I promise bitty, I’m right here.” The bitty woozily swung his helm to look at Jazz’s faceplate, then cheeped in question. “Yeah, right here, babe. I’m with you.” The bitling set their helm down, engaged the mags where they were, and promptly went into recharge. 

Ratchet chuckled, plugging into Jazz’s medical port and pulling out a welder. “Tough little mechs you’ve got there, Jazz. They’ll be just fine, I think. You, however,” with a squint, Ratchet deactivated a good portion of Jazz’s sensory net and pain-receptors. Jazz vented in relief. “You’re going to need some work.”

That was fine. Jazz certainly thought the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~♫ When you've got that late-night inspiration at 1 am on a school night ♫~


	7. Homeward bound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle outside is over and Jazz is happy to go home to Iacon.

He dozed for a joor before succumbing to recharge. Being knocked into emergency shut-down wasn’t rest, after all, and he wasn’t certain when the last time he’d had a solid recharge was. Probably the night before they evacuated the search and rescue camp. 

When he woke again there was quite the hubbub going on around him. Mecha were being lifted onto hover-stretchers and guided out, and he was relieved to see shiny clean medics who had just arrived. Bluestreak was no longer where Megatron had set him down, so Jazz hoped he was on his way to a hospital. 

There was energon being passed out to everyone well enough to drink it on their own; all the mecha capable of standing were milling around the edges of the room, waiting for their turn to get some or gulping it down greedily. The medics were also busy splicing bags of fuel directly into the lines of the injured.

He wasn’t thrilled to have a line placed on him too since his intake worked just fine, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and he could barely lift his servos right now, let alone sit up. 

He turned his helm when he heard something coming from that way, only to nearly jump out of what was left of his plating in shock because Prowl was right there.

“Uh, hi.” Jazz said dumbly, distracted by the puncture hole in Prowls bumper that let Jazz see a glimpse of the bright icy blue-white of his spark when the praxian sat. “Have you had that looked at yet?” 

Prowl stared at him blankly for a long moment, then followed Jazz’s gaze and glanced down at his chest-plates.

“No.” Prowl’s optics strayed to the red patch and the darker bitlet splayed over it that were covering Jazz’s from view. “There are others who need medical attention more.” 

Jazz could hear the praxian’s vents working hard to cool him, even though he was not and likely had not been working hard in any capacity. He shakily lifted his working servo and let it drop onto Prowl’s lap, near a vent on his thigh. Burning hot. “Uh-huh. I think there are ‘nough medics to spare you a few minutes o’ their time.” 

He turned his helm out to the room again, looking for Ratchet. He could just barely make him out on the far side of the room, bent over someone, through his messed up visor. He used the comm number the medic had granted him not so long ago to ping him. Ratchet took less than two kliks to ping him back an inquiry as to the nature of his ping. The glyphs felt impersonal like the response was automated. Jazz supposed that a busy bot like Ratchet might have such a thing for his comms so he wasn’t distracted by any inanity a random bot might send him while he was doing delicate or urgent work. He responded with a short set of glyphs requesting medical assistance for an issue not immediate, but that couldn’t be put off for long. 

He then turned his attention back to Prowl. Even though Jazz’s EM field generators were down for the count, he could still detect the fields of other bots if they got close enough. With his servo in Prowl’s lap he should have been able to feel his field, but was getting nothing. The mech had barely reacted to being touched as well, only looking down at it briefly before watching the room again. 

Jazz wondered if Prowl’s processor hadn’t gotten rattled worse than his own and affected something important. So to make sure Prowl didn’t disappear like he had appeared he lightly drummed his digits on Prowl’s leg. “Hey, Prowl, would you hold my servo?” 

He anticipated at least some sort of surprise at the brazen offer, but then wondered why he had when Prowl just did as requested without question, grip lax. Then he looked out at the room again. Jazz did the same, looking for Ratchet.

He was pleased to see the medic striding quickly towards him, worry on his face.

“Hey, Medic Ratchet! Over here!” He called unnecessarily, injecting a bit of cheer into his tone to hopefully soothe any fear he may have inadvertently caused by his ping. Ratchet scowled and stomped over.

Jazz felt the scans washing over his plating, making what parts of his sensory net that he could feel prickle. “What is it? You look fine, and I don’t have all day.” Ratchet gave him a once-over visually, then followed Jazz’s outstretched arm to Prowl. 

Prowl, who was staring Ratchet down intensely. 

“Oh, not me, nothing’s changed here. It’s Prowl, he said that no medic has seen him yet and he’s been acting kind of strange. Vent’s are hot, too.” Jazz gestured at Prowl without first letting go of his servo, which turned the motion weak and awkward. Jazz supposed that proved his point when the mech barely seemed to notice it, having apparently fixated on watching Ratchet. Jazz powered on. “Do you have time to look him over, or know who-else could, soon?”

“I’m fine.” Intoned Prowl airily, not sounding particularly convincing.

“Uh-huh. I can see your spark light, so I’ll scan you anyway. Why don’t you lie down for me and we’ll see what’s wrong.” Ratchet moved around Jazz and guided the mech down manually since Prowl seemed spacey and stubborn enough not to listen. 

While Ratchet plugged in to check Prowls systems and cleaned the praxians bumper so one of his red patches would adhere, Jazz cupped his dark bitty with his now-free servo. The bitlet had woken and was keeping a sharp optic on the medic, wings raised and generally looking as aggressive as a newling could. A gentle stroke to his helm calmed him, and he settled back down over Jazz’s spark with a purr. It was so cute how the bitling was protective of him, actively sitting over his spark on purpose like that… 

He spent a few minutes mulling over the idea, the need to name the dark bitty rising, feeling more important suddenly. He just wasn’t sure of the right name, yet. Maybe something like Warrior? Which was a terribly generic name, he wouldn’t use that. Maybe it could inspire something better, later. 

Ratchet cursed suddenly, sounding resigned. “Find what’s wrong, Ratch?” Jazz got a weird look for shortening the medics’ name.

“Only what’s wrong with all the mecha those thrice-cursed squids injected. Everyone I’ve checked who survived it has overactive nanites, weird coding in sections it doesn’t belong in, and abnormalities in their spark-pulse. For almost everyone, it’s happening slowly because of the lack of fuel. His nanites have gone into overdrive after fueling and centered themselves in his processors; I’m afraid he’s overheating. You were right to get my attention, I’m going to have to prioritize him for extraction.”

Then in practically a whirlwind Medic Ratchet forced Prowl to stand and dragged him to the other side of the room, where Jazz assumed the priority patients were. That was certainly where the majority of the medics were gathered. He was able to watch as Prowl was put on a stretcher, much to his indignation, and hovered out of the room.

So Jazz was left alone once more, though this time he was left with a blanket to cover his un-armored side. Thankfully it wasn’t too long before the last of the high priority patients were shipped out and stable, yet injured mecha like himself were loaded up on an incoming wave of empty stretchers back from dropping off their previous occupants. The mecha who could walk were ushered out first though and Jazz could feel the impatience take over him. He wanted out of there! He wanted to see the sky! Or the inside of a proper cybertronian shuttle. He didn’t care, anything was better than here.

He eagerly allowed a few medics in training to carefully lift him onto his stretcher and hover him over to the line slowly exiting. It was only once he was going through the circuitous, strangely looping route they took that he could see why it took so long for everyone to be evacuated. There were dead quints and mecha everywhere, sections of unstable flooring hastily patched over so they could cross, and areas where it looked like the hallways had been twisted like a towel that was rung out. On the hover stretcher, there was no trouble for him to navigate, but the nurse pushing it had to hop over obstacles or guide him under partially collapsed walls. 

When they exited the ship from a large tear in one side he got the opportunity to stare in horror at the pockmarked, slashed, and generally burnt or destroyed surface of the ship and the land surrounding it. It really was a battlefield, still smoking from laser fire. There were plenty more smoking remains of quintesson ships all over, but the one they had just exited was the biggest. He got a good sense looking at its wreckage for how lucky he was to be alive.  
Then he was loaded onto a shuttle that only waited for all the patients to be buckled transferred to pallets attached to the walls and buckled in before taking off. His bitlings were moved to snuggle under some of the larger and more intact armor plates on his pedes for the trip. Finally, they were on their way… somewhere. 

“So, you takin’ us to Iacon?” He asked a young medical assistant that was sitting in one of the few folded-out seats nearby, tasked with keeping an eye on all of the patients. He gave the mech a big grin.

“Uh, yeah. Iacon central. The Prime has declared that all victims of quintesson experimentation would be taken there for treatment and recovery. It’s the best hospital on Cybertron, after all!” The young mech straightened up proudly. Sensing an in for having a decent conversation with another mecha that wasn’t tainted by Quintessons he asked the mech about his career plans, what path of study he was doing, yadda yadda yadda. 

It was a relief for Jazz, he hadn’t felt this normal in a while. It was stroking his social butterfly coding and engaging a young mech during an otherwise boring trip, so win-win.

The quintesson ship had crash-landed much closer to Iacon than where they were picked up, albeit on the other side of the planet, and so they were approaching Iacon in around five joors. He talked to the young mech for the first joor before falling into recharge, then woke up half a joor out because his bitlings were cheeping to be fed. 

The mech, whose designation was First Aid and was a medic in training, was able to gently convince them to let go of Jazz’s pede cables and set them down on the uninjured side of Jazz’s abdomen, where they took care of finding two of Jazz’s fueling lines and settling themselves in, pressed up under his bumper. The pale one only needed a little help, with the immobilized arm getting in his way when he tried to scoot up to the darker one under his bumper while holding the fuel line in his good servo. He just wasn’t able to manage and First aid gave him a little shove to the rump to help him along to where he wanted to go.

It took another half joor to navigate to the hospital after they entered. Jazz could hear the traffic outside below them, honking and engines and other sounds of the city. They were music to his audials. 

They were unloaded at the hospital one by one and had to wait because of a further delay caused by the hospital having not been prepared for them and still setting up rooms. 

When the slab he was buckled to was detached from the shuttle wall he found out it was its own hover stretcher, and that was used to transport them through the hospital. On their way in he saw at least half a dozen similar shuttles all filled with the Quintesson victims and battlefield casualties busily unloading. 

Then it was all neutral colored walls and nurses and doctors passing by without a glance. His room was painted a dull blue color and he was sharing it with three others all crammed in with him. 

He was just happy to have a proper recharge slab to rest in, with a thin foam topper and pillow and everything. Way better than the floor of a cage in every capacity.

A medic came around and took every mechas vitals in the room to make sure nothing had changed, then promised they would be properly looked at as soon as possible. They were waiting on a group of medics from a neighboring hospital to get there to handle their treatments. Jazz raised his concerns about his bitlets, which surprised the nurse because he hadn’t been told of them. 

A medic from the youngling center was sent for and Jazz was satisfied that even if he wasn’t going to be treated immediately, his bitlings were. 

The medic that showed up for them was a cheery femme with green and white paint. She was perfectly professional, asking for permission before picking them up and before plugging into them. 

“I must ask, are your EM generators offline?”

“Well, yeah. Wouldn’t turn on after the crash and no-ones had a look at them or anything else yet. All the other medics are busy keeping mecha alive, it sounds like.”

She vented and turned back to the task she was doing, which was using a tiny tool to carefully pop out each of the bitlets' dents one by one. The sparkling’s optics were dim, as she had reduced all his sensory input to half to prevent struggling while she did the delicate work. “Well, I’ll put in a recommendation that it be prioritized. A mecha’s EM field is important for a newling to feel; it allows a mecha to soothe, monitor, and communicate with a sparkling until they are old enough to have language packs installed.”

She gently set the darker bitlet down where he had been previously huddled under Jazz’s bumper, tucking him in under the sheet tightly. “Well I knew those, -go ahead,- is that why they’ve been huddling up to my spark so much without it?” He waved blanket permission when she paused before picking up the pale bitlet, but belying it was his optics sharply following every movement that she made. 

She tutted over the bitlings arm and servo, plugging in and reducing his sensory net before popping out all his dents too, being extra careful around the shoulder of the crushed arm. “Yes, it is giving them stress to not feel your field. If it didn’t hurt you I would have you keep them under your chest plates for extra closeness. Under your bumper will have to do until you’re fixed up.” She went silent as she carefully rotated the bitlets arm at the shoulder, doing small scans over it. 

“You gonna be able to fix that? His tone was anxious and harder than he meant to make it. She looked at him sharply and nodded.

“Yes, but I’m going to need equipment that’s down in the sparkling ward. The joint here is damaged and I will need to open his arm up to fix it. Not to mention that I’m going to have to realign his digits so the servo will heal and grow correctly later.” She set the bitlet back down with his brother, tucking him in too. He gave a tired churr.

Jazz frowned at the news. “Is there any way to take me down there with him? I don’t want them out of my sight. The last time that happened was… traumatic for them.” And himself, he didn’t say, but it was implied.

“I will speak to your medic about it. Your bitlet will be fine for a few cycles until then.” Did he already have an assigned medic? She seemed to think so, so he thanked her and she left. 

One of the other injured mecha spoke up. “How’d you get praxian bitlings?” Jazz then found himself engaged in conversation with the other mecha in the room. They talked each other's audials off about anything and everything, notably avoiding the subject of his and others’ captivity, which was fine by him. So he was happy as a clam by the time it was lights out that night, recharging in a real berth without much pain and in good company. Things were looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yes, Jazz, you've had the same assigned medic since before you got yoinked by the squids >:)


	8. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is on the road to recovery, and the Quintesson's experiments cause complications

Four cycles later and Jazz was no longer quite so relieved and was instead annoyed and a little afraid. 

He’d had his protoform, plating, and internals assessed and then fixed two cycles ago by Ratchet of all mechs, who he’d been surprised to see. The first thing checked was the ‘injection site’ from the squid’s mad experiment. 

The puncture itself wasn’t dangerous until it got to his spark chamber. Mostly there was just armor and minor plating that was all designed to move to bare his spark, which was a pain and a half to get manufactured and replaced, or so Ratchet grumbled. The spark chamber itself had only barely been breached, just enough for the virus-like nanites that the Quintessons had been injecting to get in and infect his coding and spark. Almost all the mecha who died on the ship had suffered from spark destabilization, Ratchet explained, from the squids jabbing the needles in too deep. Jazz recalled how many that had been with a scowl. 

Any of those nanites that hadn’t made it into his spark chamber had splattered all over his internal workings and been partially absorbed for material, leaving a gritty residue that had to be cleaned out by a nurse, since he couldn’t reach it. That procedure was thankfully done in a private washrack.

He’d been informed that most of the rest of the damage that wasn’t related to the puncture was better off waiting for his self-repair to get to it. Lots of minor cracks and stress warping that would take longer to fix if a medic tried to tackle it. The recovery schedule given to him advised rest for a deca-cycle before returning to ‘strenuous activity.’ 

After Ratchet finished with him he was supposed to stay for another cycle for observation, but here he was two cycles later, with almost no improvement to show for it and not having so much as taken a single step out of his patient room since he entered it.

The problem now was that his self-repair had gotten preoccupied with building an entirely new system instead, and no amount of editing his code could get it to stop or reprioritize. Removing the main growth, wherever it might be on a mech, did nothing. The nanites just started over.

They weren’t entirely sure what the nanites were building either, just that the majority of the growths were centered in his protoform above his hips, where the hot patches he had noticed in captivity had been. It was the same thing Ratchet had told him all the ‘injected’ were experiencing. Removing the main growth, wherever it might be on a mech, did nothing either. The nanites just started over.

So Jazz was also getting intense ‘hot flashes,’ where his systems would go into overdrive, his spark pulse fluctuated and he would overheat dramatically. A cooling blanket and cold packs were kept nearby so all Jazz had to do were press a button to alert a nurse that one was happening so he could be monitored. They had also removed the armor at the affected sites. The protoform at the top of his hips struts was hard and hot, feeling like a lump was just beneath the surface. Every hot flash left the lumps a little larger, a little stiffer.

He wasn’t too fussed at having bare protoform, since the only mecha who saw it were fellow survivors, all with similar problems, or medics. It thankfully wasn’t the most embarrassing place to lose plating either.

They’d had to install a small side berth to keep the bitlings in when he had a hot episode. His protoform was getting too unsafe temperatures for newlings and they didn’t want to accidentally over-heat their still developing processors. Of course, the newlings hated being separated and would fuss to no end, the only thing stopping them from a total meltdown being his newly-repaired EM field generator. That one was thankfully an easy fix for Ratchet to do, much to everyone’s relief. 

The biggest upside to all the down-time he’d had was finally figuring out a name for one of his bitlings. Jazz’s younger, darker bitling who’d so bravely shielded his carrier's spark was now designated Barricade. It referred to the newling’s protective actions without, Jazz felt, being too on the nasal ridge. He hoped it suited the bitty through to adulthood, though he wouldn’t be too upset if the bitlet changed his designation later. Lots of bots did that, including Jazz.

Now Ratchet had come back after Jazz’s most recent scans and told him that because of what the rogue nanites were doing he might lose the ability to walk and transform. 

“Uh, ok, what are my options here?” 

“Well, your first option is to sit there and let it happen…” Ratchet said dryly, causing Jazz to scowl.

“Yeah, not real’ funny, Ratch.” 

Ratchet squinted at him. “I’ve got a few tests I want to do to see what helps. The first is also the easiest. You’re going to walk around until the nanites get the point.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. It’s had some success for a few of the other victims with similar joint issues. So, up you get. Start walking around the room, and keep going until I get back to you in about a joor. We’ll check to see if it affected it then.”

“An’ if it doesn’t work?” 

“Then things will get significantly more invasive.”

With that Jazz began walking. He started by doing slow, easy laps around the room. His energy levels were still low, with most of it going to the construction of the new components. 

Ratchet didn’t leave and instead moved on to the next bot in the room, a praxian mech, Halfstep. He ended up joining Jazz doing laps around the room. The nanites were in his shoulders, and so he had to swing his arms dramatically to keep them moving. Halfstep was a good sport and started doing silly things to vary their movement, like flapping them goofily when he had room or performing dance moves. Jazz soon joined him and they did an impromptu conga line with just the two of them. A third roommate joined them, but the fourth did not. Ratchet shook his head and left the room to do some other evaluations, merely warning them on his way out not to exhaust themselves. A joor could be a long time.

“We need some music in here!” One of the mechs laughed, and they struck up a lively conversation about their favorite music to dance to. Ratchet's advice proved true and Jazz got tired within a bream and had to stop dancing in favor of just plodding along. Eventually, he dropped out of the conversation, as did Halfstep and their roommate, focusing on keeping going. 

When Ratchet came back Jazz was struggling to keep moving and could feel a hot flash starting, his engine revving without his consent and his fans spinning up to full speed preemptively. His spark felt heavier than lead.

Ratchet immediately guided him back to his berth, lifting him onto it when Jazz struggled to do so and getting the bitlings situated in the side-berth. They clawed at the medic angrily, the pale bitling doing so with gusto with his newly repaired servo. 

Ratchet stayed while Jazz rode out the episode. This one proved particularly intense, and later Ratchet informed him that in the scans he took during it, he could already see the new growth left in its wake, rerouting itself away from Jazz’s joints. Jazz was then prescribed two walks a day, along with his roommates. A nurse would be assigned to go with them in case one of them had a hot-flash while away from the room.

So later that cycle he and Halfstep got to take a walk through the facility, being followed by a nurse and two hover chairs loaded down with cooling blankets and ice packs, just in case. The other two roommates were going to take turns so the nurse didn’t get overwhelmed.

Jazz cheerily greeted medical personnel and other patients they passed even if he didn’t know them, or doing it twice as enthusiastically if he did. Of the bots that they passed that he knew was Ratchet, Megatron - who looked deep in thought, a bot or two he’d gotten to know while captive who were also on walks in some capacity, and Prowl. Prowl was in the movement therapy room, where the nurse had guided them to as a practicality since they were going to be scheduled for sessions there later.

Jazz spotted Prowl first, lying on a table where a medic was helping the praxian exercise his neck cables. He sauntered up close enough to talk without getting into either’s EM field. “Hiya Prowl! How are you doing? I haven’t seen you since you nearly overheated on me.”

Prowl’s dark optics powered on dimly, then became brighter as he focused on Jazz. The nurse set his helm down from the strange rotations he’d been doing and left to take a break, though not going far. “Jazz. I am doing better.” Prowl glanced at the bitlings, who were peeking out from behind Jazz’s plating curiously. “Are you and the newlings well?”

Jazz’s grin rivaled the star Cybertron was currently orbiting. “Doing good! The bitlings are almost one hundred percent, and I’m just laid up with, uh, you know. Side effects.” He trailed off a bit awkwardly but Prowl was stiffly nodding.

“I am experiencing much the same.” 

They went quiet for a moment. Jazz spoke up again lowly so the medics wouldn’t hear. “Hey, so, I wanted to thank you for helping me, back at the transports. I was overwhelmed with these two, so I really appreciate it.”

Prowl didn’t smile, but his EM field felt positive. “It was the least I could do, you needn’t thank me. As I hear it, you helped me get medical attention when my processor started overheating. So I need to thank you, Jazz, for saving me from irreparable damage.”

“No, what I did was common decency. You went above and beyond to make sure I was safe. I saw you helping coordinate hiding the transports too, you deliberately put the other families and carriers in the most well-protected position you could.”

“Perhaps, but you have demonstrated resourcefulness and good sense. You would have been able to look out for yourself without my interference. I was quite literally unable to help myself when I overheated.”

Jazz huffed, getting fed up with their dumb argument, and thought of a compromise. “How about, we just tell each other ‘you’re welcome’ and be done with it?”

Prowl smirked. “I will if you will.”

He wanted to facepalm so bad. “You’re welcome.” 

“No, You are welcome.” Prowl said it softly, his optics dimming. 

The nurse noticed and came to check on him. Prowl was running through his fuel reserves like crazy and had to refuel often. Jazz understood since he was too, between the growths and his two newlings his consumption rate was similarly bad. So they said their goodbye’s and Jazz went on his way, finding Halfstep and the nurse waiting patiently for him so they could go fuel in the cafeteria on level 2.

The walk ended after that. When they went back to the physical therapy room the next cycle Prowl wasn’t there. Jazz felt disappointed that he didn’t get to talk to his new friend, but dismissed it to focus on the grueling transformation exercises he was put through. What should have been easy was instead difficult with parts scraping against each other where they shouldn’t. At the end of it, he suffered another hot flash and had to use the hoverchair to get back to his room. 

For the rest of that cycle, he was so exhausted he couldn’t summon up the energy to take his evening walk. Ratchet came by to check up on him and informed him that the nanites were very busy still even though joors had passed after the last hot flash. So far so good, the nanites were working around the potential problem areas. Ratchet was generally optimistic.

Halfstep received similar results and so did the third mecha in the room. Their fourth roommate had been moved since he was having different problems. 

Jazz was nearly in recharge when he wondered how Bluestreak was doing. He was pretty sure the mech had lived, but had been in bad shape when he last saw the praxian. Not that Jazz had been much better off, but at least he was conscious and had recovered somewhat from the injection before the crash.

He resolved to ask Ratchet the next day, and hopefully get to go visit Bluestreak on his walk to brighten up both of their days. So he relaxed, his bitlings close and content that night.


End file.
